How we work for migrants and refugees in London
The Migration Team
The Migration Team deliver on the Mayor’s strategy for social integration, to support migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking Londoners.
The Mayor's Social Integration Strategy
The Migration Team are part of the Social Integration Team, and work to deliver the Mayor’s Social Integration Strategy ‘All of Us’.
In addition to our core GLA funded work, the Migration Team includes experts delivering on the following programmes:
- London Strategic Migration Partnership
- Citizenship and Integration initiative (CII)
- Controlling Migration Fund
London Strategic Migration Partnership
The Greater London Authority is funded to lead the London Strategic Migration Partnership (LSMP).The purpose of the LSMP is to provide strategic policy coordination on migration and, through working with partners, reduce barriers facing London's migrant and refugee communities’ access to services such as ESOL and advice/information.
The LSMP work is informed and supported by the Mayor’s Migrant and Refugee Advisory Panel (MRAP) and the Homeless Migrants Advisory Panel (HMAP), consultative forums which have representation from a range of refugee and migrant organisations as well as homelessness organisations.
The London Strategic Migration Partnership (LMSP) is chaired by Deputy Mayor for Social Integration, Social Mobility and Community Engagement, Dr Debbie Weekes-Bernard. There are similar strategic migration partnerships across all UK regions and countries. Each is a local government-led partnership funded by, but independent of, the Home Office.
The LSMP funds three posts in the Migration Team, a lead officer who manages the Partnership, a Refugee Resettlement Coordinator, and an ESOL coordinator.
Find more information on the LSMP funding agreement and on the work and delivery of the LSMP, including LSMP board and its asylum support system sub-groups.
Citizenship and Integration initiative (CII)
The Citizenship and Integration Initiative is a pooled fund to support work on citizenship and integration in London. It was launched in 2017 with the aim to raise and distribute £1 million from a number of independent funders in the Mayoral term to further shared goals on social integration. The investment has been used the fund secondments from civil society organisation into the Greater London Authority.
At its core, this initiative is about testing a new model of cross-sector partnership working between London’s regional government authority, civil society organisations, and independent philanthropic funders.
The CII is based around three key areas: participation, encouraging active citizenship and increasing voter registration; equalities, supporting young Londoners and Europeans to secure their legal rights; and relationships, creating a hospitable environment for Londoners.
The initiative has enabled secondments from civil society organisations such as Just for Kids Law, Coram Children’s Legal Centre, Citizens UK and Migrants Organise.
This year the Migration Team has a secondee from Doctors of the World who leads on migrants’ access to health care and a secondee from New Europeans UK who leads on the work supporting European Londoners through Brexit.
You can find out more about the Citizenship and Integration Initiative in the programme evaluation.
Controlling Migration Fund
The Controlling Migration Fund (CMF) is funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) which is designed to help local authorities respond to the impact of recent migration on their communities.
The GLA is in receipt of funding from the CMF which is targeted at supporting non-UK national rough sleepers to find a sustainable route off the streets. CMF funds 2 posts which sit between the Migration Team and the Rough Sleeping Team.
These posts lead on providing strategic direction and oversight on solutions to non-UK national rough sleeping in the capital and working with civil society to strengthen migrant voice in this area. Find out more about the work being undertaken.
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